After seeing how minor the the cuss was (a crude four lettered word for feces) I'm fairly annoyed that many articles are focusing on her choice of wording and not the very important message she was trying to get across.

Also one might note that Obama acknowledged the remark as a slip -- not that I think she really had to. Whereas I'm pretty sure Trump's followers are actually proud of his "bomb the NFBSK out of them" remark.

I suppose one could note it as a way we hold people besides Trump to some kind of actual standards...

I'm particularly baffled by the Twit tweeting that the swear word outed her as an 'angry privileged woman'.

Does this guy think only privileged people swear? I didn't realise that the working class were all so dainty!

(Or is he, as I suspect because I've seen it happen so often, just mirroring a word 'the liberals' use even when it makes no sense because he never graduated out of the I Know You Are But What Am I school of debate.)

Allow me to mansplain. She is a woman, and therefore should not be using foul language of any caliber, and also should smile all the time, especially when eating her daily salads (whereupon the smiles shall evolve into joyous laughter). That is all; there is no comparison to The Trump "telling it like it is" here.

A comedian (Daniel Lemire) had a sketch where his character, a sarcastic clown named Uncle Georges, gives life advice to a child whose parents saddled with the name Yogourt (yoghurt).
So he starts the sketch with "Suris, Yogourt" which sounds like Smile Yoghurt but actually means "turn sour"

And Beachlife!, you are of course right to point out that lumping all US-Americans together in this is as wrong as it always is. I understand that reactions to swearwords are different even here on the board, let alone in the whole of the US.

But the bar of what can be said in public by a public figure, and what can be printed or quoted in the media seems in general to be lower in the US than here.

Thanks for the correct link - interesting article. Out of curiosity, is there a corresponding rude German equivalent ("scheissesturm" or similar)?

Reminds me somewhat of British moviegoer's surprise at the title of the first Austin Powers sequel - it was apparently considered much more vulgar there than over here, and in a similar vein as the Merkel situation, it was a case of Americans co-opting the British term, clueless as to how it would sound to the ears of those with whom the slang originated.